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Imaginative resistance as imagistic resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Uku Tooming
Uku Tooming*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
*
E-mail: uku.tooming@gmail.com
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Abstract

When we are invited to imagine an unacceptable moral proposition to be true in fiction, we feel resistance when we try to imagine it. Despite this, it is nonetheless possible to suppose that the proposition is true. In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of imaginative resistance are unable to explain why only attempts to imagine (rather than to suppose) the truth of moral propositions cause resistance. My suggestion is that imagination, unlike supposition, involves mental imagery and imaginative resistance arises when imagery that one has formed does not match unacceptable propositions.

Keywords

Philosophy of mindimaginationimaginative resistanceaestheticsfictionmental imagery
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , 2018 , pp. 684 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. 2018

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